Public Health France is trying to warn about the health of adolescents by launching a campaign on Thursday to encourage parents to pay more attention to the sports practice of their children.
The hours of PE classes in middle and high school are very insufficient compared to the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) for young people.
Margot Bayart, general practitioner and vice-president of the General Practitioners of France (MGF) union, contacted by
20 Minutes
, warns of the risks involved and offers some advice on how to remedy them.
Are our teenagers moving enough?
The finding is worrying enough for Public Health France to launch a campaign on Thursday, back-to-school day, to encourage young people to do more sport.
Because, as the health authorities say, “getting teenagers moving is not easy.
But encouraging them is important.
This initiative is "very good news" for Margot Bayart, general practitioner and vice-president of the General Practitioners of France (MGF) union, contacted by
20 Minutes
.
The results of several studies reveal, in fact, that the situation is increasingly worrying for the health of young people.
The first, Esteban, carried out in 2015, shows that among children aged 6-17, only 50.7% of boys and 33.3% of girls meet the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to practice at least sixty minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity per day.
After the age of 10, a clear decline in physical activity is observed, more marked in girls: in the 11-14 age group, 33.7% of adolescents and 20.2% of adolescent girls reach this recommendation.
The Ministry of Sports recommends in practice to accumulate at least one hour of physical or sports activity in addition to physical activities of low intensity daily life and those which are less than ten minutes.
In addition, you need sustained activity sessions of at least twenty minutes, at least three times a week, and muscle and bone strengthening activities at least three days a week.
Health risks
In addition, the proportion of young people spending three hours or more in front of a screen each day reaches 70% among 11-14 year olds, 71% among girls and 87% among boys aged 15-17.
A sedentary lifestyle, in particular with increasing screen consumption and declining sports practice: a combination that can promote health problems.
Especially since the health crisis has worsened the situation with 53% of children who have increased their screen time, according to a study by Ipsos for the Observatory of Parenthood and Digital Education and the National Union of family associations, published last February.
“It is even catastrophic, alarms Margot Bayart, in terms of physical health, with the risk of obesity, but also mental”.
“We risk seeing cardiorespiratory problems because adolescents are growing people and they need to develop their cardiac and respiratory capacities,” she explains.
All this added to a diet that is not always healthy.
At school, insufficient sports practice
A sporting activity is however provided for by the National Education, with compulsory weekly physical education and sports (EPS) teaching of four hours in sixth grade, three hours in the other class levels of the college and between two and three hours per week in general, technological and professional high schools, specifies the ministry at
20 Minutes
.
But this is not enough, and it is far from the recommendations of the WHO.
In addition to the time given to sporting activity, Margot Bayart also wonders about the intensity of the activity practiced and the real time given to sport.
“Often at school, out of the two hours of PE, you already have a thirty-minute walk to go to the stadium, she underlines.
Also, if you're in goal playing soccer, the activity isn't going to be very intense.
We must also take into account that in a group of 30 students, it is not always the whole class that is mobilized.
"It's complicated for the teacher to be behind everyone", adds the doctor according to whom, at school, "there is a big part of getting back in motion, which is already good, but not enough" .
Some tips
It is not always within everyone's reach to be able to enroll their child in extracurricular activities, but there are simple and not always expensive ways to remedy this: "we must seize all the moments when we can encourage practicality rather than ease: taking the stairs instead of the elevator or escalators, going to school by walking or by bike”, suggests Margot Bayart.
If sometimes it can take longer, we can turn off the television earlier and replace screen time with walking.
"Walking does not require any means, just having two feet," she recalls.
Our dossier on the start of the 2022 school year
Thus, lowering screen consumption to leave more room for sports practice can prevent adolescents from future health problems because "they are in the process of endangering the health of our teenagers", warns Margot Bayart.
National Education is pushing in this direction this year by experimenting, from November 7 in nearly 140 colleges, two hours of additional physical and sports activity.
And the context of the Paris Olympics in 2024 can promote a craze for sports practice.
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